we've got a controversial topic for you today we're going to look at these
insulation piercing connectors when connecting an additional consumer unit to existing meter tails
been asked to look at these by a number of ev installers now you can see the attraction
of these because they actually make connecting an additional set of meter tails to the existing ones
incredibly simple because this little connector just wraps around the meter tail clamps through
makes a connection then you can tap off with these new tails so just a little bit of background about
these these are a well-established technology they even have their own standard but you usually find
them in what's called an abc or an aerial bundled cable now let's just see where you'd see these
normally at the top of electricity poles particularly in rural areas where they're
distributing power overhead and just have a closer look at an application used to tap into
the bundled cable possibly then to feed down into a property or tap off for something like a street
light closer look at a bundled cable so yeah it's basically individual cables are wrapped
around each other they can be obviously insulated with an additional protective sheath on the outer
they can be aluminium or copper and they do have their own extensive set of standards and
are well established and are used extensively in that industry so are they suitable for use indoors
to connect the scenario we've got here we'll just have a little closer look at what i've mocked up
behind us so here's typically we've seen a lot of EV charger installations you've got an existing
consumer unit that maybe has no spare capacity it may have type ac rcd so not suitable for
connection of a new circuit to it especially one feeding a charge point so what a lot of installers
do is will fit an additional smaller consumer unit so here's a typical one you'd see with a circuit
for a ev charger possibly even a pme monitoring device in there and then we've got our new tails
and then we somehow need to connect them into an existing set of meter tails or split the tails
and what we've done here is we've tested out these insulation piercing connectors sometimes
referred to as line taps and yeah they are incredibly easy we'll show you how they fit
in a moment but before we do that this is not uh this is not efix um saying
these are fantastic crack and use them so just a word from our legal advisor mr joe robinson
good evening solicitor joe here my clients at efix have just asked me to confirm that the following
information neither implies approval of nor condones the use of any product that may feature
in said segment all electricians will bear the individual responsibility for
the installation of any accessories featured and indeed any harm caused by such thank you
so just to reiterate we don't want to see pictures of this type of installation on the instagram
linkedin with a yeah he fixed these are fantastic thanks for giving the seal of approval on them
this is just a discussion to get your opinion because this is an area that we think is ripe
for innovation when you think about the number of eb charge points that are going to install over
the coming years what is the alternative well obviously the alternative is those
trusty henley blocks um that we see in so many uh installations um but they you know they take up a
lot of room they really haven't changed in well i don't know getting on for 100 years possibly
so not a good solution so in theory these could be a great solution they are incredibly robust
uh it's you know this cable joined under there is certainly not going anywhere what's your thoughts
on using these in this type of installation so let's have a look at how you connect one of these
insulation piercing connectors i'm going to put the main meter tail through here and then we're
going to tap off with a branch connector here so this will take up the 50 millimeter squared this
terminal he'll take up to 10 millimeter square do you notice it's got a waterproof compound
in there because normally this lives outdoors and then we've got the shear bolt on the back
so i've connected up to the metro so we'll see when it makes contact so i'm just going to spin
that around there bring in the branch conductor push that through and then you can hear the paste
squeeze out and then bring in our meter tail just loosen this off a little bit and drop that in
tighten it down by hand and then we're going to start the tightening process so you do need an
incredible amount of torque to do this so i'm just going to use those grips on that side and bring in
crunch there are proper tools available for this but
it's just the first time we've done this so you can see on the metro there we've got uh obviously
high resistance joint at the moment we'll see when this starts to pierce into the connector
see it's already in there it's a little resistance
and then we've still got quite a way to shear this off which i think
and then we've got that bolt sheared off so interesting this ball is not connected
to actually the conductor soldier we'll just push the put the continuity tester on again
let's see we've got a lower joint a little resistance joint
and put it on the bolt the bolt's not connected to the connector great piece of engineering
this is one i destroyed earlier you'll see if i undo this how it's actually made up
so it's interesting before you make the contact you can't actually see any of the
piercing conductors but you peel this away and there's what's been driven into the
copper cable so you've got those spikes there and shrouded by this so it's ip 2x when it's in its
open state ip4x when it's closed no word on the waterproofing on that just have a look at a cable
i used earlier as well you can see in the previous attempt where they conduct a bit in there
wow so they are incredibly easy to use certainly a lot easier than
having to tap in and cut the existing tails put the henley block in there and then try and get
everything back in the space you've got provided a nice compact connection however a few things
obviously concern us when we look at them so think about these they are as the name said
aerial bundle connectors so these normally go out of reach high up where nobody can touch them
and that possibly brings the the first thing that concerns us is when you look
at this branch connector here there is only the single layer of insulation preventing
you getting to to touch that conductor in there so how durable is that and then on some of the
larger ones we've seen that can actually be what looks like a twist on cap so somebody could very
easily remove that without the use of tools so put your opinion on what you think of that
and we also think there is probably not been a lot of tests done on pvc uh insulated tails with an
outer sheath that we typically find in a uk installation a lot of the tests are done on the
those aerial bundle conductors which often have xlpe insulation and a very thin outer protective
sheath as well so what difference does that make as you'll see in there those little connection
areas are pretty pointy and quite small when you consider actually the the size of the cables we're
using here but we're already seeing some pictures of these installed on things like instagram um you
know and we have myth and legend behind it people have seen manufacturers test data to show that
somehow that's acceptable we've also heard tales that dnr's are refusing to connect installations
where they see these and a cursory discussion with nic i see inspectors somebody mentioned that they
suggested you'd have to put them in an additional enclosure which would probably echo what we said
about that cable connection there but what do you think is this a great solution if a manufacturer
is willing to go out there and do all the tests to validate performance put some sort of safety
approval on it could it speed up the installation of ev charge points and let's face it we have to
install a lot of them over the next few years so this is an area that is crying out for innovation
but we want your comments put them below what do you think of this approach is this something
you're using now uh have you seen people using this or is this something that basically is yeah
nice to know but yeah we'll we'll wait for someone to do the proper validation work so
put your comments below and we'll see you on the next ev charging installation video